


Chiaroscuro

by WaldeinsamkeitKilig



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Love Triangles, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:27:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23214025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldeinsamkeitKilig/pseuds/WaldeinsamkeitKilig
Summary: Lucien has always been a peculiar case, he has no recollection of his past at all but the life he has built up after the sudden void is certainly enough for him, he's happy with his situation. However that all changes when he meets great misfortune and gets introduced to the world of Greek mythology. After a sudden family reunion he gets employed at a place where a certain someone remembers him all too well... Lucien realizes that what he thought of as normal, was all a lie and that there are higher powers involved than he could have ever imagined.However as Lucien unveils more and more secrets and long forgotten schemes, he has to learn that some wounds are better left to rest or else the wrath of the gods could become quite life threatening.As he stumbles through one incident after the other, he realizes that he is indeed capable of finding himself. While the mythical world gets thrown into turmoil, it gets more and more clear just who and what he really is.
Relationships: Charon (PJO)/Original Male Character, Nico di Angelo/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:  
> Although this should be clear, I still feel entitled to say this: all the Characters except the OC’s are not my property, the rights to them belong to Mr. Rick Riordan. Also the backstory, looks and behavior of characters and places is altered.

**3 rd POV:**

The elderly man on the bed sighed as he took a few shaky breaths. “You’re doing great” said a gentle voice near him. He opened is watery eyes and blinked to look at the young man sitting next to his bed, who at this very moment seemed to resemble an angel straight from heaven. Honey colored hair was cast by a ray of light at the perfect angle, making the silky locks shine like a halo around the delicately handsome face. Warm, steady finger closed around the elderly man’s wrist as the young male encouraged the senior lying in front of him to take deep breaths.

The young blond leaned over the bed of the and gently embraced his shivering patient in a warm hug as if to calm him down. “You’re doing really great”, he repeated, while slowly letting his powers wash over the flickering remains of what was once the essence of a healthy human life. Gently, he looked into the old man’s eyes and firmly said: “Karl, I will guide you through every step of your journey, don’t you worry.” He felt a familiar tug in his gut as the life in front of him truly ended; quickly he leaned forward and grasped the fleeting soul with his powers. He then slowly stood up and closed the eyes of the corpse in front of him.

Hesitantly he let out his breath in relief, that he had been holding in through the entire process while binding the soul temporarily to his own. He was tired since the feat he had managed to achieve today wasn’t so easy to accomplish. He stood up and left the room.

While he walked through the door, he nodded to the elderly woman standing just outside and she smiled a bit gloomily “you were right, as always”, she murmured and he patted her shoulder; “don’t be sad aunt Sylvie, you know it had to happen sooner or later” he said and she nodded with some remaining sadness in her eyes. “I am glad that you’re here.” she said. “You are always so gentle with them Lucien, I don’t know how you mange to stay so calm every time”. He shook his head, smiling a little, “I just feel instinctively what kind of guidance they need, and even though it is sad that he had to leave, at least we know that he did so without fear of it.”

The intelligent hazel eyes of his caretaker looked at him with appreciation. “You truly are a gift of the gods Lucien.” She rubbed her eyes a bit and then went to call the house doctor to get the death certificate.


	2. Blue Balls

**Lucien POV:**

I didn’t do much the rest of the day, I read a few chapters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice _,_ afterwards I had wolfed down dinner and went to bed early as I had tired myself out with Karl’s soul this morning. I could still hear Karl’s echoes talking to me but I was unable to answer him without making aunt Sylvie worry about me too much.

After I dived onto my bed, still fully clothed I relaxed my muscles for the first time of the day (not that I had any to show, I’d always been quite thin but boy did those non existing muscles hurt!) Karl or rather Karl’s soul grumbled at me for ignoring him the whole day. _“Sorry, I just didn’t want her to be freaked out by the possibility of being seen naked by you, you know?”_ I conveyed the feeling of wiggling my eyebrows at him through my thoughts and he blushed. Oh I’d known of his crush on my aunt for quite some time now, but it was so cute to see him stammer every time she came into view.

He held up a ghostly middle finger in my mind, that feisty old man. I chuckled and didn’t bother with his antics, as I summoned my powers once more and let myself get wrapped up in shadows that pulled me down.

After the quite uncomfortable fall I landed in what seemed to be a fancy hotel-lobby. And of course I fell right onto the floor next to the sofa that I had originally planned to gracefully flop onto and groaned while clutching the quickly forming bump on my forehead. I heard a low chuckle from across the room and sent my best death glare towards Charon, which quickly shut him up. _Heh, what can I say, I can totally intimidating if I want to._

After remembering common courtesy, Charon walked towards me to me to help me get up and laid a pleasantly cold hand onto my poor bruised head, an action which I could only sigh in appreciation of. After a few moments he pulled away and I almost followed his nice cool hand but managed pull myself together in time.

“Well that didn’t go quite as planned did it?” He asked me with a remaining hint of a chuckle in his throat. I only glared at him once more and he held up his hands in surrender as he looked me up and down. “I’ll be fine, thank you for asking” I growled still a little miffed but I couldn’t help getting a little amused too.

“Anyways” he cleared his throat as he held his hand out once more to help me up, then straightening out his, obviously new and probably ridiculously overpriced Armani jacket. I duly noted that his usually slicked back hair was a little out of order, which surprised me, considering his obsession with neat attire. I dusted myself off and looking around the unfamiliar Lobby. “You rearranged it?” I asked, surprised at the fact that he had actually followed my advice.

“Well if it’s requested by someone as persuading as you are…” he trailed of, as his almond shaped eyes were scanning my body, taking in the sight of the clothing that I had on, or in this case, the lack thereof. Since I still didn’t quite have the drop to this realm under control I often ended up with a few ruined articles of clothing, my connection with the darkness itself was never the strongest. It was pretty annoying and I had even thought of just not wearing anything, but seeing how the eyes of Charon were glowing ever so slightly at the sight of my bare skin, I knew exactly why I shouldn’t. It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t do it anyway one day, seeing as I was always up for some fun. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not a man-whore… or at least not so much as he is.

I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran up my spine at the slowly forming predatory look in his eyes and had to admit that I was a more than a little aroused by it. I let my eyes take in his sight for a second, he really was a fine looking specimen with his dark, slicked back hair, deep red eyes and flawless attire, the look he had taken on was that of Asian descend and looked absolutely delectable, but I knew better than to let myself go at this moment, after all I had another Spirit attached to myself right now.

_But hey I ain’t no saint and this hot piece of meat is looking at me as if I am the first cold beer after spending a week in the Sahara so… fuck it!_

He really was my type, with that whole dangerous and mysterious vibe around him, and his scent that smelled of pomegranate and freshly dug up earth. I couldn’t help myself and sauntered over to where he stood, his eyes staying firm on me but almost literally burning with desire as I practically slithered my way over to him. I had quickly crossed the distance between us and laid my hands on his firm chest while he didn’t dare to move. I could still tell that his breathing had grown heavier and his defined face was faintly lit up by the low red light of his eyes.

I leaned forward and had to go tip-toed just to even reach his chin, _yeah I am really too short, sigh…_ anyway I let my tongue slide up from his chin up the side of his chiseled jaw line to his ear, just to see if he tasted as delicious as he smelled. _He did_. I kitten licked it once playfully and could hear him groan lowly as he bent down ever so slightly to give me more access. I giggled quietly and blew some hot breath over the wet trail that my tongue had left behind. I grew a little more ambiguous when I could feel one certain… _ahem_ part of him poking my tummy.

I softly bit down on his earlobe and could feel the shiver that went through his body. _Interesting, I should keep that in mind if I ever want to curry a favor with him._ Lost in thought I began nibbling on his ear a little more, wondering what I should ask him for, suddenly I heard him give out a feral growl from the depth of his chest as he pushed me against the wall with my arms over my head. Abruptly torn out of my thoughts I could only utter a surprised shriek before he shut my mouth with his own rather roughly, his hot tongue slipping into my mouth and eagerly exploring every part of it.

_I can’t deny, he’s a good kisser_

I could feel his need growing bigger, along with his member, with which he was grinding against my crotch. I couldn’t help but whimper out a moan, because DAMN he knew exactly what to do to turn a guy on. He paused for a second too look at me, his enlarged pupils seemed to swallow his whole Iris and it felt as if I was sucked into a bright red sea of dangerous pleasure. I could feel my own desire growing as he stared at me like a lion stalking his prey. I swallowed, hard, and then pulled myself together, because as much as I wanted this to happen, it just wouldn’t be appropriate at the moment. _Not that I really cared much but the duty comes first… what a shame._

I looked up to him innocently while he was still clenching his teeth, trying to get himself under control. I couldn’t help but giggle again at his reaction and was satisfied that I had caused this sexy, usually so reserved man to react so much. I wiggled myself out of his grasp and gave him one last peck on the tip of his nose.

He had gotten his himself mostly under control now and glared at me, while Karl chuckled in my mind _“ah yes, the youth is so passionate nowadays”_ he said to himself while pretending to hold his hands over his eyes. If I had to be honest, I had totally forgotten about that old coot during the swift make-out session but I sent him my best attempt of an inward scowl.

**Charon POV:**

I was having quite a bad day, because of some thuggish souls that had tried to escape and sighed. I missed Lucien, he was always able to calm any of them down in seconds, but he was currently reaping upstairs. I ran my hands through my neatly combed hair; it was one of those things that I had gotten used to doing while I quit smoking. I tried not thinking of the more fun ways to cope with stress, angry sex for example, _hmm I wonder if he’d be up for that_? My mind drifted off as I imagined the golden boy riding me with a flushed face, slowly rubbing himself on me, his hot skin grazing my cold body and warming it with desire while he was moaning with his angelic voice, his eyes watering from the pleasure and I could feel myself growing quite aroused.

As if I had summoned him with my imagination I could suddenly sense his aura rapidly nearing the Lobby. For a second I was wondering if I had fallen asleep and if Lucien would descend like an Angel from the ceiling, to entangle me in his warmth and to have some hot and sweaty sex, but I almost chocked on air in amusement when he fell onto the floor instead, hit his head on the ground and just laid there for a second, as if he was wondering if he should just stay down. Not that I minded it very much, he still looked delectable, laying on the floor especially as he lifted his head to glare at me with eyes that promised me that I would double-die if I didn’t shut up.

I bit back my smile and went to him to offer my help, still very tempted to tease him a little.

He looked quite good, for someone that had just fallen from a considerable height, except for the bruise that was quickly forming on his forehead thus I laid a hand on his bruise, basking in the feeling of his warm skin. Lucien closed his bright amber eyes and leaned into my touch looking as if he was about to start purring and I wanted nothing more than just stay in the position forever but my legs slowly started to camp up so I with Tom my hand while enjoying the small whimper he unconsciously produced. His eyes fluttered open and he gave me his best glare. His pout looked adorable but I knew that he probably wouldn’t forgive me if I was to pinch his cheeks now.

He stood up and I straightened out my attire I looked down on his small form, noticing his torn shirt with his slightly tanned skin glowing seductively through the rips in the fabric.

Once again my mind began wandering off to the indecencies I would love to do to him and my body started to respond to my imagination. Apparently my desire wasn’t as well hidden as I though and he got that mischievous look in his eyes, that promised me trouble. Slowly, he started walking towards me, juicy hips swaying and his gaze set on me. I breathed in deeply, trying to keep myself under control but when he reached me, I knew that I had lost. One of his sleeves was ripped off from the fall and as he was raising his arms to reach my neck, the tear on the side gave me a sinful flash of a perky, rose colored nipple. My breathing grew heavier as I was honestly struggling not to press him down to the floor and ravage his body until his throat was too raw to even give out the slightest moan. So immersed in the imagery, I was ripped from my thoughts when he started to slowly drag his tongue up my throat, and to my ear. I cursed inwardly, I had never told him my weak spots, but somehow he would always have a way to get beyond my defenses.

I couldn’t force back a low growl of pleasure when he bit into my earlobe, my dick now rock hard as he was apparently distracted while practically chewing on a spot that could almost instantly make me cum. The torture was too much for me, so I spun him around and pressed his tiny frame against a wall while claiming his mouth. His tongue was hot and he tasted like honey, it always surprised me just how perfect he fit into my arms. His soft moan reached my ears just as I was trying to convince my body not to just turn the younger man around and to fuck him silly on the wall right then and there, while my cock was clearly doing its own thing, grinding up against the clearly erect member of my longtime co-worker. I had always desired the boy, from the moment that I saw him and I knew that he could tell. He always teased me, always going a step further, and always leaving me hanging with blue balls and lots of fap material.

I had gotten myself mostly under control, when Lucien leaned forward, giving me a peck on the tip of my nose, his eyes twinkling in amusement and a little regret and slipped under my arms out of my reach. Then he frowned for a second and seemed to think about something and I realized that the reason he was here was most probably because he was carrying a soul with him and I blushed ever so slightly in embarrassment. Lucien then wiggled his fingers at me in a twinkling motion, and practically danced away from me. With a twirl, he got swallowed by dark smoke that sunk into the marble floor.

I leaned onto the wall that I had him pressed against a few moments ago, buried my hands in my hair and let myself slide to the floor. After a few minutes of contemplating I sighed deeply and then stood up, willed the few dust particles and wrinkles out of my suit and the opened the gates once again only to almost get overrun by a large group of ghosts that were making way too much noise for my current emotional state. “SILENCE”, I growled, pouring some power into the command and the souls shut up immediately. Satisfied, I nodded at them once and the ordered one of the Support ghosts to take over for a bit as I rested. Ever since the war against Gaea had occurred, there were less problematic ghosts in the underworld, as the miasma from the monsters had thinned out quite a lot, however it was impossible to stop all bad from earth so there was always work to do. Exhausted as I was, I chose to activate one of the robots Hephaestus had forged for my needs and then went to bed. Although the robot wasn’t able to do the job as well as a sentient being, the Support ghost was there to do that job.

These selected souls were the ones that had died a peaceful death, while completely accepting their end. They were very valuable, as they were not only able to calm down other spirits but also lower the aggressiveness of various monsters. However they were also very rare because not many people died without regrets, pain or lingering desires, this had all changed once Lucien came along, he had the power to put almost any sentient being into a tranquil set of mind, in which they were willing to talk and listen to him, coupled with his natural persuasiveness, he could be regarded as one of the most precious work forces within the underworld.

I left the room and the two helpers to themselves. Exhausted, I stumbled into to my temporary bedroom, willed some silk trousers onto me and then fell onto my bed, my head was still full of dirty fantasies that I just couldn’t get out. My body screamed to find relief before I went to sleep. Sighing, I let the room in front me get consumed by darkness and my imagination do its work. Roughly I touched myself, impatient, angry that the boy had such control over me, although I had sworn to myself not to lose composure. Breathing heavily I released my pent up emotions while imagining his seductive lips parting to lick other parts than my ear, with a breathless groan I came, hard. I cursed and dragged myself to the bathroom.

While I let water run down my body, I tried clearing my head but it didn’t work, all I could think of was the pretty blond joining me and… I stumbled out of the shower and threw on a bathrobe, while my hair was still dripping wet, I looked at myself in the foggy mirror, “pathetic” my reflection spat at me and I closed my eyes. With my last strength I dragged my body to the bed and the second my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh deary me, wasn’t that steamy? If you were wondering, yes Charon is “only” the ferryman but he is still a god, a minor one, sure but still a god employed in the underworld. So why not also give him some power in the domain of his boss I mean he is still playing an important role there. Conjuring up stuff or “willing” it kind of has to work for him, maybe he ain’t as good as Hades at it but he still has the powers of a god. Also what else are his powers supposed to be? Making a boat wherever he is? I mean yes but also BORING!


	3. Fire

**3 rd POV:**

**_A few years ago:_ **

It was a normal day and Charon had his hands full with work as usually. There were so many spirits that were not finding the right place, still had a burden or just simply were too stubborn for the immortal to handle at the same time, but within the sea of chaotic ghosts that he was currently drowning in, stood one particular one. It was completely quiet and didn’t move except for the occasional flicker, as if a gentle breeze had touched it. Charon stared at the soul of the elderly Female in utter confusion, when had he ever seen a ghost so at peace, so undisturbed by its own death? The formerly human female had a lingering smile on her lips as the others around her screeched and thrashed around in despair.

He stood up and walked towards her, his stern gaze set solely on her but she didn’t grow nervous at all. “What was your name?” He asked. “Delilah Ashwood, sir” she answered, her smile not dropping in the slightest. “Is there anything that you desire to take with you?” He asked her a trick question to see if she was truly a Support ghost.”No sir, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am dead, however Lucien, the young man that helped me along the way was truly considerate maybe you could reward him?” She asked with a hopeful smile as she looked up to whichever creature she thought would guard the entrance of the underworld. He could hear the genuine tone in her voice and suddenly wondered what kind of person, _living_ at that, would be able to put a dead person into to such a calm and reasonable state.

Over the years, his amazement at the feat accomplished by the mysterious _Lucien_ only grew stronger. Every once in a while he’d have a ghost that was so non-violent, so calm that the aura they spread calmed the other ghosts down, something that would later be described as a miracle, since the effects held on and even after millennia, these ghosts blessed by the sacred being were still treated as of higher standing than the regular ghosts. Many of them were temporarily released from Hades as Companions, because their mere presence ensured safe travels and less aggressive Monsters for whomever they were around.

Of course, Lucien wouldn’t know of this until later, he was just working in the retirement home that belonged to Sylvie, the kind lady that had granted him shelter in return for the work that he did. At first Lucien had only done regular work, like tidying up the rooms of the inmates and sometimes cooking for them. But then he had been confronted with the supposed death of one of them and to his surprise he had been able to somewhat feel that the elderly wasn’t dead. He decided to follow his gut instinct and told Sylvie, which he already regarded as part of his family, about his suspicion.

Within the following years, Lucien had built up quite the reputation in and around the retirement home to have a kind and calming personality and to be able to make friends with even the grumpiest of Oldies. At the same time he was quite the charmer, he loved flirting with various people in the town and could always get what he wanted if he really tried.

He had a beautiful voice the elderly loved sitting around him in the winter and hear him play songs with the old guitar that he had found in the attic and his skills often brought tears to the ones around him.

Many young ladies and gents were chasing after him but he never truly settled down, only a having a fling here and there every once in a while but he never really felt the connection that he was searching for in any of them. Maybe it was his weird powers, of which he still didn’t know how he got them, or even just the lack of a real identity that bothered him.

He thought back to the fateful encounter, when he woke up in a soft bed with a bandage around his head, not quite knowing where he was or how he got there. He remembered a freezing Winter and going into a tavern to beg for a piece of bread, and how they had took him in with open arms. He remembered staying there for some time, and meeting new people, and the fact that they let him stay even though he didn’t have anything to pay them back with. He remembered that he was happy, and playing games with other people and food, lots and lots of food.

Then he could only remember a nauseating feeling spread everywhere and clutching his head under some mysterious pressure. A window shattered and a dangerously glittering load of glass fell onto his crouched form. He remembered sudden, fresh air hitting his face and himself running to the opening. There was an overwhelming feeling of joy as rays of sunlight hit his face and he practically sobbed finally realizing how much he had missed the sun, why had he missed it so much? He leaned forward to catch more of the wonderful feeling until he suddenly slipped on one of the many shards of glass still laying on the floor and with full force, he fell out onto a paved road and hit his head.

_Darkness_

And then Sylvie had found him. She performed some first aid on him and then took him to the residence doctor, that determined a concussion. Sylvie took it upon herself to treat him until he got better without even demanding a reward. She was a very beautiful lady of an unknown age and she was the kind of person that was very empathetic towards others. So when it became clear that Lucien had nowhere to go, she proposed the idea of him working for her. He accepted.

He had lived with her for a long time, his adorableness quickly creeping its way into the hearts of the villagers until they were all enraptured by his charm, he didn’t even do anything deliberately, it was just the way he normally behaved, which made him even more admirable in their eyes.

Until one day the peace was destroyed by a fire in the neighborhood. It was the deepest of winter, and the snow laid impossibly high, but that didn’t stop the roaring hunger of the flames. However it did hinder the fire truck from quickly reaching their tiny village in the middle of nowhere. They all knew it and couldn’t do anything but watch their dear neighbor Tom Reynolds’ farm burn down. None of them acted on a whim, as they knew that it could very well mean their death.

Until the farmer suddenly cried out “BETH!” His eyes widely open looking straight at his daughter still trapped within the house, running to the window. Many villagers started tearing up at the thought of the little girl dying in the flames and Tom stood up to run into his burning house in a frenzy to save his daughter. From not far away, Lucien looked at the scene, he was well aware, that he couldn’t help everyone, but then he could feel a painful tug in his gut and he breathed in, frustrated.

He knew what it meant. It meant that the souls of the girl wasn’t supposed to leave just yet, and that it would probably not find the entrance to the underworld, due to her premature death. The wish to leave the material world and rest in the underworld to consequentially forget about their lives and start a new one wouldn’t form in a soul if they came to a sudden end of their life. The little girl’s soul would probably roam around in search for her body and would give him a headache while doing so.

So he went after Farmer Tom. Sylvie screamed for him to stay but she knew as well as he did, that his decision would stay firm. He leaped through the already smoking door and could hear a weak, raspy cough from his left, where the father was kneeling on the ground, an arm protectively around his already unconscious daughter, trying to shield her from the flames. Lucien jumped over a smoking pile of ashes to get to the two people and the older man lifted his head weakly to look at him. At first there was only shock, but soon hope began filling his eyes.

He tried to clear his throat as best as possible and gasped for air as he signaled towards his daughter with a pleading look in his eyes. Lucien nodded with his sleeve over his mouth as not to breathe in too many of the fumes and took the girl from the other males arms. He then went to help up Tom as well but the man shook his head and coughed out “please help her first, I’ll only make you slower!” Lucien could see his determination in the man’s bloodshot eyes and could only agree. He led Tom to a safer spot that was not enclosed in flames yet, his slender frame aching under the larger mans weight. Inwardly he was cursing his own weak build for the umpteenth time, then he limped through the burning house through the now fickle door out into the freezing cold outside. While Bethany was slumped over his shoulder, he went as fast as possible to reach safety. When the two of them were at a safe distance from the farm house, he gave the still unconscious girl to one of the worried onlookers and then swiftly turned around to enter the house once again. Although he knew that it was time for Tom to leave, he couldn’t let him go in that way.

* * *

The flames were burning brighter than ever and Lucien almost couldn’t see his own feet anymore. He coughed violently and sprinted to the spot where he had left Farmer Tom. The man had already fallen unconscious but Lucien could tell that his spirit was still within his body. His lifespan was shortening drastically every second though. Gasping for air, the blond tried lifting up the older man’s weight, but he stumble and almost fell into the fire. With a sob, he realized that he couldn’t save his neighbors life if he wanted to keep on his own. However, Lucien was unwilling to just let the kind man’s soul be tortured in his last moments, so he linked a part of himself to the flickering remains and then started fighting his way back out of the house.

In his mind, he heard the wails of Tom and the sound pained him like no other. Because although he had assisted the elderly within the retirement home on their journey, he had never been confronted with such a violent end. Lucien stumbled over a pile of rubble and in his panic he breathed in a large gulp of smoke and fine ashes, forcing him to cough harshly. He searched for the exit, his eyes were watering from the heat and his lungs were screaming for oxygen.

Exhausted, he fell to the ground, his eyes shut tightly because of the hot air. He looked at his own current state, only to see his lifetime rapidly decreasing. A tear slid down his face only to drop onto the hot ground with a sizzle and to disappear instantly. He felt a few hot flames licking at the sleeve of his arm almost playfully and he thought about little girl that had to grow up without a father because said man had chosen to die in her stead and he wondered why he felt such pity and understanding.

He thought of Sylvie, who had treated him like family, even to the extent of granting him her last name. Who would have to run the retirement home alone and how she would have to employ some stranger that she couldn’t pay with her measly income.

He sniffled with his eyes closed. He wasn’t able to think clearly anymore, but he knew all too well that if he was to die while reminiscing these memories, he would almost certainly be unable to find his way to the underworld. He didn’t particularly dislike the thought of staying for a bit and looking after Sylvie but he currently had Tom’s Soul attached to him and he would never leave the man’s effort in vain by staying in the realm of the living and not letting the heroic man’s soul be blessed in the place that he had led countless others to.

Lucien wasn’t quite sure what the underworld was, he had never been the truly religious type; as far as he could remember, god had never seemed to care much about him and his prayers, but knowing that there was a beyond had already filled him with a sliver of curiousness.

While he was wondering how to find his entrance, the connection with Tom acted up and ended up pulling him to a large cave that emitted darkness. Lucien chuckled to himself as the action reminded him of an over exited dog dragging its owner around. “Oh well, I guess here we are”, he whispered mostly to himself. After he had stepped into the darkness, he tried looking around but the place was truly without any light whatsoever, or was it? There seemed to be a fain’t gleam of something in the distance, so Lucien curiously approached the source. It led him to a closed door, from which a thin ray of a bluish glow was detectable. Breathing in heavily to steel his nerves, Lucien pressed the doorbell. Fain’tly, he could hear a low bell chime and a few seconds later the sound of high heels was clacking in his direction. The small blond had to muster up all of his braveness, to not run away.

The doorknob turned, the door opened a crack wide and was then slowly opened. At this point, Lucien was already so pumped up that his mouth ran dry. The door swung open to reveal a very pretty but disheveled looking lady, her ruby red lipstick was smudged and her blouse was crumpled and seemed to have been closed in a hurry. With furious eyes she stared the man in front of her into the ground, if looks could kill he would have probably died again. “How did you get here?” she barked “uhm, I w-walked” Lucien stammered, intimidated by her presence. The Lady rolled her eyes, “I was asking how you got to the door, it’s not time yet.” “Huh?” She rolled her eyes again, “so stupid” he could hear her mutter. She turned around with a sharp turn, then spoke to someone behind her, that Lucien couldn’t see. “Wasn’t there a barrier to activate every once in a while?” She asked, clearly annoyed. “Yes” , a deep, calm voice responded. Lucien could feel a shiver running down his spine at the sound. It was a good voice, reminding him of dark chocolate he wondered how the mysterious man would sound if he started singing.

“Is it one of the Supporters again?” the voice asked. The female turned around to look at Lucien skeptically, “he doesn’t seem like much” she answered, scorn evident in her eyes. A sigh came from the room behind her and then Lucien could hear quiet footsteps from within. A man stepped into the door frame, he was very handsome. He had dark, slightly curly hair and eyes that seemed to suck in what little bit of light was streaming from the room and illuminating his face. He seemed to be of Asian descend and had a muscular build. He seemed to be in his late twenties, but the look in his eyes portrayed that he was much older. Lucien looked up at him since even though the man wasn’t towering the blond, he was still at least half a head taller than him.

Lucien noticed that although the woman was looking as if she was just having a steamy make out session, the other male seemed completely spotless, his expensive looking clothes were on point and there wasn’t one hair out of place. The rude lady followed his gaze and then stepped to the handsome stranger. Possessively she laid a hand on his chest and snuggled herself closer to his body, completely ignoring the annoyed gaze the man shot at her. “Charon, come on send him back so we can continue”, she purred, her pointy red fingernail slowly creeping its way up his shirt to open the first button.

With a scowl he slapped her hand away and stepped out of the door frame towards Lucien while keeping a stoic face although his eyes were portraying his interest. He made an impatient hand movement towards the lady, who was fuming in the background. She looked at him with unbelieving eyes. “Are you serious?!” She screeched, “after fifty years I finally get you into bed and you treat me like this?” Her clenched fists trembled. “So what?” The tall male countered, “Isn’t this just an elaborate scheme to get your husband annoyed? Or did you really think,” he sneered at the thought “that I would fall for you? Just because your husband isn’t here yet, you thought that you would get back at him by greeting him as my partner?” Her eyes were wide in shock, “I-I never… uh” she stuttered trying to talk her way out of the scenario. “Oh whatever” he shrugged his shoulders carelessly, “do whatever you see fit, he has to go to the fields of punishment anyway.” With that he snapped his fingers and the woman disappeared into black smoke that seeped into the ground.

All the while Lucien had been watching attentively while trying to understand the situation he was in. “Charon?” He asked and the looks of the male in front of him flickered and morphed to reveal the cartoony look of one of the gods that Lucien had seen in the Disney film _Hercules_. Charon groaned and shook his head, “you’ve got the wrong guy, you’re picturing that horrid cartoon Hades right now aren’t you? Let me give you some advice, don’t mention that in front of him, dear old Walt is still in the fields for it.” He seemed to reminiscing something and then chuckled lowly. “Just go back to what you thought before, I kind of liked it.” Lucien wondered whether he should tell the man that his velvety voice had somewhat remembered him of an internet celebrity he really admired but decided against it, who knew if the immortal would get offended or not.


	4. Crossing

**3 rd POV:**

The looks of Charon went back to what Lucien had initially thought he looked like. The ferryman took out a mirror from out of nowhere and examined himself “hmm, I think you did a good job with this, I could wear the look for a while.” He mumbled more to himself than to Lucien. Said stood awkwardly to the side and waited until Charon turned around. When he did, the handsome man had a list in his hand and was checking it. “So I need your full name, birth date and your payment. Oh and I need you to part with that other soul there, how did you get it here anyway?” Lucien was overwhelmed by the rapid speed, that the man was firing questions at him and the only thing he understood was to release Tom’s soul. With a sigh, he did what he was asked. The spirit stayed for a split second, then as if it was pushed out of the room by a barrier, his soul rushed out the door and Lucien could only look in wonder.

“Ok now that that is cleared, I wonder how exactly you stayed, not to mention even found this hall before the break was over?” The dark eyes of Charon watched curiously as Lucien was squirming under his gaze, “Uhm, I guess I just knew” he said not even sure himself. While still examining the young blond in front of him Charon wondered whether he had also received the special treatment like the newer Supports but then realized that the spirit was way too nervous compared to the other Supports he had met so far, so he crossed the possibility off in his mind. He then looked at his list once again and conjured up a ball pen. “Here, fill out this form and then I’ll just bring you myself, I can’t have you roaming around and interrupting something more important ok?” Lucien nodded and took the list but after one look at the questions, he uncomfortably coughed a bit. Charon who was already on his way to a desk behind what seemed to be a reception, turned around, “ if there are any questions…” he didn’t finish his sentence but the look he gave Lucien had the blond exclaiming: “I’m really not stupid ok, I don’t know these because I hit my head a few years prior and forgot!”

Charon let out a deep sigh. “Very well” he said, “ just tell me what name you currently use, where you consider your home to be and all that alright?” Lucien nodded relieved and answered the questions as good as he could. Afterwards the dark haired man looked at another chart that had been lying on a desk and mumbled something under his breath. He then clapped his hands and the room sank into total darkness, the gloomy room vanishing completely and changing to a wet cave not very different than what Lucien had come from. The only thing that had changed was the size, it was huge! The ceiling could not be seen and there was a big body of water not too far away from the two men.

Curiously, Lucien looked around and realized that there were bodies floating in the slow current. He looked at Charon in shock and the other looked back with indifference. Swallowing the lump of fear that had been building up in his throat, the usually so cheerful guy went after Charon to a small boat that looked like the ones that he had seen in a film about Venice. He watched the obscure

Or at least Lucien was pretty sure that is was a river, he couldn’t see very far as there was a strange grayish fog everywhere on the overly calm surface. Everything was completely silent, not one thing moved around the two. Their surroundings were a monotone gray and black. Just as he was thinking about how fitting it would be if… Charon himself began blending in with the environment. Lucien thought back to his time with the living and felt very reminded by the black and white image of Charon. The now red eyed male stopped irritated and looked at his hands then turned his eyes to Lucien, “Just what in boss’s name did you think of to achieve this?”His piercing eyes were lined with kohl and the way he spoke had a more menacing tone to it. “I am so sorry!” Lucien exclaimed, while trying to keep his voice down, tears started to well in his eyes because of the strange situation.

“Are you crying?” Charon asked disbelievingly, “No” Lucien roughly wiped his face with his burnt sleeve and sniffled quietly. The action got Charon to finally look at Lucien, to really look at him and he felt pity for the boy in front of him. The he had on basically nothing on, his skin was burned in a quite few spot and a lot of his hair was missing, the remains were curled and standing up in all directions. Since Charon worked in the kind of place where he would encounter mangled corpses almost every day, he had grown accustomed to a lot of gory sights and could stay level headed even in the face of the worst cases but that didn’t mean that he was a heartless man. He sighed, “Fire huh?” “Oh, yeah I guess I look pretty horrible.” Lucien chuckled quietly and snapped out of the weird state of mind he had gotten to into.

“Don’t worry,” Charon tried to sooth him, “when you get sorted, they will restore your looks to make it easier for everyone.” He then looked at the list in his hand, “And it seems like you’ve died heroically, as long as you didn’t do anything horrible in your past, a spot on the isle of the blessed can be arranged for you.” He said it in a way that made it sound positive, so Lucien didn’t ask further and smiled at him. “You know, I need to demand payment but knowing the youth of today, you didn’t bring anything:” Charon sighed a little at that and Lucien shuffled his feed in embarrassment. “I don’t think I have anything of value on me, oh wait…“ He interrupted himself and then reluctantly pulled out a thin golden chain from under his ruined shirt, on it dangled something that looked like a drachma. Charon looked at it with interest, godly coins were pretty rare find in the mortal realm. “I can’t see it clearly from here” He stepped closer to the slightly see-through spirit.

The man that looked a strange lot like the evil persona of a well known internet celebrity, gently grabbed the chain and realized that the it was in fact an old looking drachma. How fitting, he almost snorted at the irony of someone accidentally wearing a drachma to the underworld. While examining it, he turned it from heads to tails, and where the number had been, there was _LUCIEN_ engraved in an out-dated font. He looked at the wearer with a little doubt, the guy didn’t seem like the type of person to get his own name engraved onto something. Especially since drachmas were considered as something very valuable in mortal means. Sure enough Lucien blushed in embarrassment and shook his head repeatedly, “I wore it when I woke up and couldn’t remember anything, so it was decided to be my name from then on forward.” Charon slowly nodded his head in understanding, then realized something, “then surely it must be important to you, am I correct?” Lucien nodded, he didn’t have a reason to lie about it, truth was, he had never taken the necklace off and always felt a strange heartburn whenever he looked at the strangely familiar, old-fashioned curves and the slightly crooked S at the end.

While Lucien was still reminiscing in the past, Charon stepped even closer to him and bent down to his neck. He took a sniff, doubt clouding his mind then reluctantly backed off again while scribbling something onto the edge of Lucien’s information sheet, then ripped it off and folded a tiny paper crane with it. Lucien blushed like crazy while holding his hand over the still tingling spot that Charon had breathed on while also keeping the taller mans actions in check. Charon let go of the little paper animal and it slowly started floating to the ground, however before it could even get halfway to the stones that they were standing on it dissolved into black smoke that darted away.

Although he was sensing the blonds’ confusion, Charon just waved it off and asked: “May I take your necklace as payment for the ride?” His voice rumbled lowly, more powerful as he was taking on his persona of the ferryman. “If so, I take it that you have understood and agreed to the rules of the underworld. When we reach the other side of the river, you will be silent and add yourself to the line of waiting souls to be judged. After a while you will encounter Cerberus, he is the guardian of the underworld that is supposed to prevent break ins and outs. You will not disturb him, just walk right past, don’t look him in the eyes and don’t misbehave in general, he likes to rough up deviants sometimes.” Lucien nodded frantically.”When you get to the court, you will definitely be judged as a regular ghost first, one that can stay for a while until hearing to call of the river Lethe. After we found your identity, you can be referred to the isle of blessed, where you can also get your necklace back, understood?” “Yes”, Lucien answered seriously. “Very well.” The ferryman stepped onto the boat and Lucien followed him onto the dark waters.

While they were on the river, Lucien couldn’t help but look around curiously, his sight was being blocked by the fog but he could hear loud cries from his murky surroundings. Charon had changed his looks even further, his form was glitching with red and blue and he was looking around irritated then shot the surprised Lucien a weirded out glance. The blond shrugged and then looked out into the white void in front of them.

After an uncomfortably long period of time, the shore came into view. Lucien wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but the scenery reminded him of the desert in Madmax’s fury road. If you couldn’t tell, Lucien had gotten very used to new media and whenever he had time, he brushed up on his knowledge. Lucien was a very clever guy, even if he didn’t let his genius shine through most of the time. While working for Sylvie, he had went to evening classes and visited numerous lessons in university, not only did his persuading skills boost his talent in finances, he was very interested in numerous languages including Latin, Italian and Spanish. Many of his professors praised him for his skills, he was basically the favorite student of all of them, yet still stayed outgoing and easily approachable for the students.

Back to the desert, it began to regain colors, and soon enough the temperature started to rise as well. Within a few seconds, the air became scorching hot and the earth started to heat up as well. Charon hissed lowly and then gently pushed Lucien onto the red ground. Without speaking another word, he raised his hand and then dissolved into black smoke that mixed with the fog. The boat gently started to float away and even though Lucien didn’t want to stay in the desert alone, but he was certain that there was a much darker future awaiting him if he went into the water. He turned around to face the empty plain that was lying in front of him, then took his first steps onto the now hot ground.


	5. Cerberus

**3 rd POV:**

Lucien walked and walked and walked, in fact he walked for so long that he had forgotten when or where he had started. So he just wandered aimlessly, never uttering a sound due to Charon’s warning, until he spotted another lone traveler in the distance. He wanted to call out to them but stayed silent, so he sped up his pace and caught up to the person. It was a female at around twenty years old, that had a slit on her throat, dark smoke seemed to pour from the wound and Lucien shivered slightly at the sight. The young woman smiled apologetically while motioning to her wound and Lucien nodded in silence. The two continued to walk together for a while until they saw the silhouette of a wall in the distance.

When they had almost reached the tall barrier, the woman heard a distant shout from behind them. It was a man that was only wearing swim trunks, he was shouting rather loudly for them to wait, while waving his arms in the air. Lucien motioned for him to stay quiet but the other man didn’t acknowledge the warnings, instead he started running towards the two. Then, he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at something that was behind them. The lady slapped her hand over her mouth, to silence, what didn’t make any sounds in the first place and her eyes were opened wide in fear as she looked over Lucien’s shoulder. The blond felt a shiver running down his back, as he looked around slowly while holding his breath. Before he could even turn halfway, he heard multiple deep menacing growls from where the other two were looking at. Then a dark blur crossed his view for a split second and the guy in the swim trunks let out an earsplitting screech.

In his panic, Lucien closed his eyes but the sound of playful barks had him open them again. In front of him he could see the behind of a massive dog waving its tail, from the looks of it, it was a Doberman. Lucien leaned to the side to look past the behind of the large carnivore, only to see the once so loud male curled up in a ball while shivering in fear. Then he heard someone sigh from inside the barricade and a door opened itself in the seamless wall. Out of it stepped an elderly woman.

She walked to the large dog and it turned around to look at hear only to reveal three heads. The one on the right whined lowly and she pet it while sneakily putting large headphones onto its ears. Only when the device was on the dogs head, did she turn to the crumbled up man. “It’s ok,” she said, “there is no need to be so afraid. I’m sure that the person who greeted you at the entrance has already explained the rules.” The man in the swim trunks got up while still looking at the dog fearfully, only when he had confirmed that it was calm, did his gaze turn angry. “I want a compensation!” he said. The woman raised an eyebrow. “This- this beast has tried to kill me!” He loudly exclaimed while pointing at the three headed dog that had made itself comfortable in the warm sand. Its black and brown fur was shimmering rather nicely in the sun and Lucien felt reminded of the dog of his former classmate.

While Lucien was still thinking, the other man had continued to ramble about a compensation and how he deserved better treatment and how important he was until the lady from inside raised her hand to silence him. He stopped for a second, flabbergasted then started screaming at her. The dog that had been calm until this moment stood up and walked behind the calm lady as if to give her backup, he fell unconscious. She smiled at it and raised her arm to scratch its chin while the man grew silent once more. The woman with the slit throat watched the lady cautiously until she turned around and the two seemed to communicate for some time. The elderly Woman nodded at the younger one and motioned for her to get inside the entrance. She then turned to Lucien who was watching the scene curiously. “ _If you want_ ” a female voice in his head said, Lucien grabbed his ear in confusion, “ _you can go in as well.”_ it continued. The lady then smiled at him and motioned for him to go as well. Lucien nodded obediently and trotted towards the entrance. One of the dogs heads turned towards his moving form while one of the others looked at the lady questioningly. She moved her head in approval and it started following after the young deceased. Then she turned back to the half naked, unconscious man, grabbed him by the arm and started to pull him to the entrance as well.

When Lucien stepped through the doors to the underworld, he saw rows and rows of people lined up in a more or less orderly fashion. He then heard some shuffling behind him and felt warm air blowing on his scalp. He giggled and turned around to the large dog that was standing behind him and wagging its tail. Although he had been afraid of the large animal at first, he couldn’t help but find it cute with its puppy like demeanor. He slowly lifted up his hand and tip-toed to reach the dogs shoulder. Its heads bent towards him and sniffed his hand curiously but he didn’t pull it back. Remembering the tips that the dog owner at his university had given to him, he patiently waited until the dog had picked up his scent. While he looked at his comparatively ridiculously tiny hand, he wondered if he smelled like burnt bacon right now but the dog didn’t seem to mind his half cooked state or get hungry by it either so Lucien boldly assumed that it was smelling the scent of his actual soul, rather than the one of his material body.

The large three headed dog seemed to like Lucien and cuddled itself to the young man. The warmth made the blond sleepy so he sat down while Cerberus curled around him in a protective manner. Now that Lucien could relax, a powerful wave of sleepiness hit him like a truck and he fell into a deep slumber.


	6. The Castle

**3 rd POV:**

When Lucien woke up, he couldn’t quite recall where he was. It was dark around him but nice and warm. Did he go crazy or were the walls moving rhythmically? Then the memories came back and he sat up quickly. He looked around and sure enough was met by a big dark eyes of one of Cerberus’ heads. It blinked cutely while yawning then it opened its other eye. The dog moved its neck to lay on Lucien’s lap and looked up at him. Lucien smiled involuntarily and started stroking to soft fur around the large ears. It gave an appreciative whine and closed its eyes in pleasure. Lucien noticed that it was the head with the earmuffs on and couldn’t wondered whether it just generally had sensitive ears or if the dog suffered from some sort of sickness.

He let a bit of his powers seep out, slightly bewildered that they were still working, but he figured that they were tied to the underworld in some way. With them, he checked up on the dogs head and found that it was actually suffering from a migraine. Lucien thought of some of the things that he had learned in his evening classes and remembered a lecture in which the professor talked about how excessive external stimuli were the trigger to many problems so the idea with the noise canceling headphones were actually quite the ingenious thought but he also understood that the guardian of the gate couldn’t constantly wear them or its performance would drop otherwise.

From searching for the problem, Lucien had also gained valuable information regarding the interior design of the tame beast. Its three heads were specialized in specific task, as such, the left head had the beast hearing and logical thinking, the middle head could sniff out souls the best and was responsible for tracking. The right head was… well a bit playful and a foodie, it was the lazy one out of the bunch, but treated just as importantly, since it was responsible for the mental health of the other ones. Lucien couldn’t help but chuckle at the last one, then he started to work on the problem at hand, sir left head had a problem with loud sounds, so the blond guessed that it had somewhat grown overly sensitive because of the task that it was given. This wasn’t such a hard problem for him to solve after all, he just had to get the dog to not take itself too seriously and maybe get the right head to remind the left of that every once in a while.

While increasing the level of power, he started to work on the more immediate problem, the headache, but with the combination of the underworld strengthening him and his determination to help, he erased the pain from the dog. It opened its eyes in surprise and stared at Lucien for a second as it got the urge to take better care of itself, then it stretched out its pink tongue and licked him over the head in appreciation. “Ewww!” a laughing and damp haired Lucien exclaimed, then he got up while the other dog heads woke up.

The man tried looking over his doggy prison, but wasn’t tall enough to do so. Impatient to wait, he softly apologized while attempting to climb the furry mountain in front of him. The now half awake middle head looked at his struggle with interest, then put its snout under his bottom and started pushing him upwards. Lucien let out a surprised yelp at the acceleration, then he looked around as he stood on the back of the guardian, the world around him looked the exact same as it had when he had arrived, even the line hadn’t decreased, but after a few seconds of thinking about it, he whacked his forehead; people died all the time, how could the line decrease? He felt a bit bothered as he watched the stream of waiting spirits stretch into the far distance and sighted deeply. Then he sat down onto the dogs back to slide to the ground on the other side but one of the heads pushed him back up. Slowly, the beast began to uncurl itself and stretched out its legs. Surprised by the sudden height, Lucien could only grab a fistful of black hair and clamped his legs down as if he was horseback riding. Well dog back riding he thought to himself and chuckled a little

Once the Gatekeeper had warmed up and made sure that Lucien was sitting safely at the base of its neck, it began to trot in the direction of the line. Even though they were only going at slow speed, the dog was huge and its steps covered the distance as fast as if Lucien was to take a light jog instead. The blond felt thankful and hugged its warm body, getting sleepy from the gentle rocking motion of the canine. But that sleepiness soon faded, when he felt the dog picking up some speed. He glanced up to the third head and it looked sideways with an amused twinkle in its eyes. With his powers, Lucien could pick up some gratitude but also a worrying amount of mischievousness. Cerberus stormed towards the line and had reached within a few leaps, Lucien couldn’t contain a scream of genuine terror as the overgrown dog increased its speed even more, its paws only touching the ground occasionally. It felt like taking a deadly roller coaster only that there was no safety, no buckles, no saddle or reigns and certainly no health insurance. Then Lucien remembered that he was already dead and started to relax. He realized that he quite enjoyed the fast speed and the wind biting his face, he felt incredibly free, as if it was something that he had always yearned for.

He laughed in joy, as he pretended to fly. After some time, Cerberus started to slow down and deep down, Lucien felt a little disappointed but when he slipped of the dogs back, his knees buckled because of the unusual strain. Although he was sitting on his knees, his pretty face burned and his clothes ruined, Lucien had a cheesy grin on his face. Cerberus bent its heads towards him and gave him a worried glance. Lucien chuckled and petted the right heads snout, then stood up while feeling his muscles protest vehemently. He grimaced for a second but the pain dulled down after a few more seconds.

When he looked around, he was in front of some sort of castle. It was made from a completely black, glittering stone and had windows that looked like the ones on churches, with various colorful shards that didn’t seem to be in any specific order or make an image. He looked up to one of the castles towers, that didn’t seem to have an end and reached into the murky air. Cerberus pushed Lucien towards the entrance with its snout and whined lowly. The blond stroked its fur absent minded and then stepped towards one of the skeleton guards that was standing in front of the entrance. It was wearing a rusty uniform and a ripped shirt underneath but its spear was shiny and new. When Lucien approached it, it didn’t seem to mind so he peeked under its helmet curiously. It rattled a little, then lifted a hand as a greeting and cleared its throat. “Ahem, welcome to the underworld, young spirit, may I ask of your desire within the great rulers castle?”

Lucien’s eyes opened wide in disbelief, “W-whaaaat?” he stuttered, “Cerberus!” his head whipped towards the dog, that was turning its heads around with a guilty expression. The large canine whined lowly, then dashed away in a sprint. Lucien could only watch as a cloud of dust settled down on and the dogs behind grew smaller in the distance. He then shifted his head to look at the skeleton with a guilty grimace, it giggled seemingly amused. The skeleton guard laid its arm around Lucien’s shoulder in a friendly manner and said in its squeaky voice, “ya know, that dang dog must really like you for it ta deliver you right to Hades’ doorstep.” Lucien glanced at the bone man doubtingly, it rattled quietly as it adjusted its helmet, “Ya ‘ve been requested by his majesty anyways, I’d say that old fella did ya a favor.” Lucien sighed deeply and made a mental note to bring Cerberus a snack as an apology later.

The skeleton waved its clattering glove at the other one, then started walking towards the entrance with Lucien still clamped under its arm. The spirit had no other choice than to follow the guard into the castle.

Lucien looked around, he was inside the walls of the castle now and standing in some kind of entrance hall. The rough dark stone that glittered on the outer walls didn’t clad the inner ones. Instead the floor was made of sand colored marble with fluffy light brown carpet everywhere. The ceiling was so high that it made him feel even more insignificant, it was pain’ted to look like a stormy sky. Somehow, the air outside was perfectly captured and made the illusion that there was no ceiling at all and that the large crystal encrusted chandeliers were magically floating in mid air. The walls were a creamy beige with golden ornaments all over them. The windows which had looked quite intimidating and dark from the outside, were now lit up from the other side and made scattered flecks of different colored lights appear all over the floor. The theme seemed to be either the desert with its rich earth tones or a pastry, Lucien couldn’t quite tell. All in all, the castles outside reminded Lucien of what he had seen on documentaries about the medieval dark ages but the inside reminded him of pictures of the Louvre.

While his head was still spinning from the sudden luxury, the skeleton proceeded to drag him through various, spectacular rooms and hallways, until they reached a door that looked like it was imported straight from fort knocks. The skeleton leaned forward and whispered something to the door. For a moment there was no reaction and Lucien wondered if it had said the wrong password but then a creaking sound could be heard. Expecting the door to open, Lucien stretched his neck but the door itself suddenly morphed into a metal golem. The blond stumbled back in surprise and the skeleton giggled. “yeah, that happens ta the best of us.” It said, then it turned around and greeted the giant. It nodded back at its colleague then a surprisingly delicate female face formed out of the seamless surface of its head and a powerful voice washed over the both of them. “Do you have an appointment with his majesty king Hades, the ruler of the underworld?” Her voice was so loud than Lucien heard a faint ringing in his ears after the question, the skeleton seemed to be affected as well and rubbed its nonexistent ears. “Will ya quiet down for once?” It then shouted at the metal golem in annoyance, “I’ve told ya before, if ya don’t turn down ya volume a notch, we gonna get some real trouble, am I clear?”

The golem looked down in shame and shuffled its feet, then it nodded quietly. Lucien could see a few golden tears well up in her eyes but the skeleton had already stomped past the metal woman. The guard turned around and looked at Lucien from within the room. He hurried up and followed him, not without patting the poor golem on the back and smiling at her understandingly, she sniffled then smiled back at him weakly. After Lucien had passed the entrance, the golem turned into a glob of metal that filled the hole and soon looked like a door again.

“That was a bit harsh don’t you think?” He asked the skeleton, “Huh?” It asked, apparently completely unbothered, “what do ya mean?” “The Golem, it looked like it wanted to cry.” “Whaaaat, nah that ain’t her style, that brute is just a bit rusty in the head.” It said dismissingly, Lucien stared at it in disbelief until it grew visibly uncomfortable. “Ok, ok I’ll apologize later!” It hurriedly said then it pushed him through a large door and shut it while it itself stayed outside.

The door fell into its place heavily and Lucien stumbled for a few seconds. His eyes were glued on the dark mahogany floor with fluffy, wine red carpet. The light that was coming from thousands of freely floating light bugs was dim and as he slowly adjusted to the change, more and more of the room was revealed to him. His first thought was that it was big, bigger than all of the other rooms he had crossed and it intimidated him with its darker tones. Now his suspicion about the castles theme was pretty much solved, the color scheme that had varied through every room had always been warm and earthy tones and it wasn’t any different in this one, however his surroundings now reminded him more of a grotto.

A few light bugs came to Lucien and flew around him in circles. He calmed down and stretched out a hand, soon enough many little lights were hugging his fingers. He giggled from the sensation, then he heard a couch from behind him and whipped his head around only to see a small girl standing a few meters away from him. She was a little see-through as well and looked at him expectantly. She stretched out a hand and motioned to Lucien to follow her than swiftly turned around and floated away. Lucien had to break into a sprint to keep up and soon they reached a small door hidden in a crack in the cave like walls. The ghost girl silently motioned for Lucien to open the door, he hesitated for a second then did what he was asked.

Behind the door was a corridor that seemed to never end, the girl looked at the door once again and Lucien closed it behind them. Only then did she open her mouth, “What did you think you were doing in his majesty’s throne room?” She hissed through clenched teeth. Lucien gulped “I don’t really know, Cerberus brought me to the castle and a skeleton guard brought me in, he said that king Hades wanted to see me for some reason.” The girl looked at him in silence, then sighed deeply and smacked her forehead with force. Lucien flinched at the sudden noise. “So You didn’t even get judged?” She asked with an annoyed tone, “Uh, n-no” “Ugh, ok I’ll bring to the judges first, then you can come back and do whatever you were supposed to do.” Under her breath she muttered “damn these overexcited morons, now I have to clean up their mess again” “Sorry”, Lucien felt bad for making her trouble, but she just sighed “whatever it’s not your fault anyway, I have deal with stuff like this all the time and you don’t seem half bad, so no worries. I’m Selma by the way”


	7. Judgement

**3rd POV:**

Selma and Lucien walked in content silence for some time until they reached a sign next to a platform that said “UT (H&H corp.)” Lucien wondered what the abbreviations stood for and as if she had read his thoughts, the girl said, “This is the underworldly semi-public transportation, the two H stand for the cooperation of Hades and Hermes, to safely let personnel and potential visitors get to the places that they need to go. To quickly describe it, it’s a teleporter that works with shadow travel, our price thought of it.” She sounded very proud and the word teleporter impressed Lucien immensely but he didn’t quite understand the rest. “So your Prince thought of it? I didn’t know that there was such a person in Greek mythology. Also is shadow travel that thing that Charon did?” 

She blinked then smirked a little, “first name basis already eh?” She snickered, “did that old playboy get personal so soon?” Lucien blushed in embarrassment , “you… it isn’t like this at all!” She laughed loudly, “oh come on you’re so fun to tease, how could he control himself, ahaha!” She threw her head back and grasped her stomach in delight.

After she had calmed down slightly, Selma stepped to the sigh and pressed a button while still giggling. On the platform, strange markings suddenly lit up in an eerie red light that was soon covered by the dark smoke that was seeping out from under the floor. The girl stepped back and grabbed Lucien’s hand. “No matter what happens, you can’t let go unless I say so, understand?” she said in a serious tone and Lucien nodded solemnly. The two stepped on the platform and the female took out a card. With a swiping motion she activated the formation, through the shadows Lucien could catch a glimpse at the red drawings lighting up once more and then they were surrounded by pure and utter darkness.

Lucien felt a sense of and remembered the cave that he had met Charon for the first time. It couldn’t have been a long period of time since his death, but still felt like it had been ages since he had last seen sunlight.

While the two spirits were teleported through the underworld, there were no disturbances whatsoever and they reached a large plain. The plain was filled with souls as far as the eye could reach but it was surprisingly quiet. Lucien looked up to the walls, there were statues caved out of them. The statues were all somewhat resembling humans but also not, Lucien felt reminded of various religious paintings from all over the world. While he was inspecting the statues, a female voice washed over the plain and quieted the gentle murmurs of the ghosts down. It didn’t seem to come from any specific place, but instead surrounded them.

The sound crept up Lucien’s body and into his ears, it turned and twisted and slithered like a snake. He got shivers and tried to shake the cold feeling off. “we ArE so HAppy to sSSsSeE alL Of YoUUU” the voice hissed, then one of the statues on the wall began to move. It had a snake like lower body and a female torso that was not covered. It had a mostly human face but instead of hair it had a scaled crown on its scalp that looked like the one of a cobra. The eyes of the statue eyes were a slit and of the same venomous green color as its head cover and tail. When it moved, Lucien could see large bat-like wings folded on its back. Around him a few men started to drool from the sight of her large, freely swinging breasts. Lucien had to admit that they looked great and if the rest of her body was human, he might have been aroused too but like this he couldn’t overlook her scales.

Another one of the statues freed itself from its podium, it had a completely human body covered by a loincloth but wore an Egyptian looking mask on its head that greatly resembled Anubis. It had a golden staff in its hand and stomped it into the ground. Even from the distance that Lucien was at, he could feel the ground vibrating. The action had triggered a chain reaction and one after another all of the statues started to move and free themselves of the stone they were carved into before, the ghosts stayed absolutely silent in fear of the consequences if they didn’t.

After their awakening, there were at least thirty statues standing above the spirits and looking at them with alert eyes. One of them especially grabbed Lucien’s interest, it was a male that was clothed similar to the one with the staff, but instead of a dog, it had the head of a bird. He couldn’t quite tell from the distance but it seemed to be a falcon. The statue had not stopped looking at him since it had awoke and its dark beady eyes seemed to be able read his thoughts. The supposed Anubis stomped his Staff again and then called a name with his thundering voice.

Nobody dared to move until a lone hand was raised with in the crowd. There was a flurry of moving bodies as no one dared to stand next to the ghost that had bravely stepped forward. The Masses parted like the red sea, to let the shivering female step towards the staffed statue. When she stood in front of him, he raised a hand and she started to float upwards. With another hand movement, the statue let an old, two way scale appear and the female softly floated towards it. When she had landed, a black feather fell from the ceiling, while it was doing so, it grew slower and slower until it stopped in mid-air a good meter above the opposite side of the scale. Then the dark color started to leak from its stem, it dissipated like smoke, and as the feather grew lighter and lighter, it started to gently fall again until it touched the scale. The stone man with the dog head looked at it for a second, nodded in approval and the spirit on the scale crumbled into dust.

Some people in the crowd started to cry, some started to pray and some were staring into nothingness solemnly . Another name was called, this time by it was an older man without visible injuries. Another statue stepped forward, it was made of white marble and had large, goose-like wings on its back. The old man stared at it in admiration and silently started to mutter something then he crossed himself. The marble angel smiled at him gently then it opened its arms. A strong light enveloped the old man who smiled blissfully at first, then his skin started to smoke. He cried out and the angel closed its wings, with sad expression it shook its head and stepped back to let another statue take its place. The other one looked almost the same, only it seemed to be made from Obsidian and instead of Wings, it had a tail and hooves. On its head there were two little horns that were burning at the tips.

The stone demon opened a clawed hand that ignited a fire under the old man’s feet, he cried in fear but after a few moments the fire extinguished without causing major damage. The demon sighed in annoyance, then it stepped back as well. The old man looked relieved but confused, then the statue of a very old man stepped into the judges spot. It was made of lusterless, grey stone and was wrapped in many layers of grey cloth, a light smile was on its wrinkled face. It looked at the male spirit for a while, then tapped his crutch onto the man’s shoulder. He turned to grey dust just like the female before him.

Lucien could hear confused murmur within the crowd, some ghosts sat down, some had formed groups and were discussing the happenings. Another person was called, he was judged by the Christian duo as well, but he had a different outcome than the first. He didn’t get damaged by the angels’ light at all and he became a bluish sphere that quickly left the area.

Like this, many names were called, some were turned into grey dust, some into differently colored spheres. A female name was called and the lady right next to Lucien moved towards the figures standing on the walls. Like before, there was no conversation, but through the course of the judgment, Lucien had come to the conclusion that the statues were conversing per telekinesis. The lady had been transported in front of a dragon like creature, it was deep blue and sparkled with every twist of its body. It somehow reminded Lucien of the one he had seen on American dragon but he didn’t dare to even think the thought for it was probably a huge affront.

The female was judged and emerged as a red ball of light. Lucien looked around, even though there was no sense of time in the underworld, he felt as if he had been in the area for a very long time. The crowd around him thinner and thinner until suddenly the snake statue hissed his name. “LLucCcienN DooOnNadieuuU” he bit his lip in fear but stepped forward. In his head he could suddenly hear the voice of the statues. “Oh, can you shut up Mino?” he heard a male voice say, “you shut up, I was doing my job jussSt fine, it’s your fault that…” “bah, I’m so tired.” “you’re always tired, I’m so done with this!” “you…”

In his head, the rambling continued on for a while as the statues bickered with each other. Lucien giggled quietly, suddenly there was a silence as all statues simultaneously turned around to stare at him. The first one to speak up was the blue dragon, it cleared its throat in embarrassment and stroked its beard-like whiskers with its paw. “Excuse the holdup, young spirit.” It said with an English accent. The other statues grumbled to themselves but stood up straight once more.

The Anubis looking one stepped forward, “since I’ve been decided to be the head judge today” it looked at one of the other stone creatures on the wall accusingly, “I am to decide who gets to try first.” He looked at the blond for some time then said, “hmm, not an easy one why do those modern people have so little belief huh? It makes everything so much harder but… what is that? Oh? OOHH? AHA! I knew it“ The statue laughed in delight and waved an earth toned toga wearing statue over. “Greek!” it then declared loudly in Lucien’s head while looking proud.

The statue looked at the spirit, then shook its head “no, I don’t think that he does.” it said out of context. The Anubis guy huffed in annoyance, the snipped his fingers. In his hand appeared a paper crane. He folded it open and him and the toga wearing male looked at it for some time. Then the two turned around whispered with the others for some time.

The statue of the old man in the grey cloth came to Lucien. “hey there young chap.” It said out loud with a voice that sounded like it came from an old gramophone. “I have many names, but right now I’m favoring _Gevatter Tod_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No need to google translate "Gefatter Tod", I've taken the word from the German language, it means either father or grandfather death. He's often depicted as an elderly man often with some kind of staff. It's kind of outdated to refer to him as that so I thought it fit. I want Thanatos to be kind of old-school, the type of person to still use a rotary phone at home even though their grandchildren bought them a brand new smartphone.


	8. Balthazar

**3rd POV:**

To be honest, Lucien didn’t quite know what the name was supposed to mean but he still felt something strange at the sound. The toga statue sighed and bumped its hips into the old man. H stumbled and lost the hood over his face. Astonished, Lucien watched as the wrinkly face rapidly started to change. The grey blanket (?) the old man had been wrapped into fell to the ground to reveal the frail body that was growing as well. In a heartbeat, a, around forty year old, regal looking man stood before Lucien . He had light brown hair with a few grey streaks and a light beard adorned his face. Although he practically oozed of deadly power, his eyes were looking kindly at the young man that was staring at him in shock.

Lucien flinched, an unexplainable fear had gotten control of his body and his back was cold from sweat. The statue looked at him in concern, “you don’t have to fear me, I am not going to hurt you.” It said in a soft tone, while stepping closer to Lucien. The spirit stepped back even further, stumbled and fell to his knees, tears started to well up in his eyes as he curled up into a ball.

The statues around the two were whispering to each other. The formerly old looking man turned his gaze to Anubis with a troubled expression but the dog headed death representative shrugged its shoulders. The guy in the toga stepped forward and motioned for _Gevatter Tod_ to step back. The grey statue hesitated then it retreated into a corner.

When Lucien felt the aura retreat, he slowly started to uncurl himself. “Why were you reacting like that?” One lilac colored woman asked, “Thanatos might be the god of death but he himself doesn’t have such a fearful aura.” Lucien shook his head while he got up, “I don’t know, he looks familiar but I don’t remember.” Another statue spoke up, it was the one that had looked at Lucien in the beginning, its voice was sharp. “He’s telling the truth, I can’t see anything in his head from before.” Lucien grabbed his head in shock, “Oh, don’t worry about it,” the falcon said “This is my job, I observe the truth and only that, not all of your thoughts. But since Charon confirmed it already, this memory loss is not temporary, it’s like it was erased from his brain, we need to look into this later.” The Anubis statue made an affirmative sound, “We’ll just let him stay on the path to river Lethe, since it can only be reached when the soul is ready to be reborn. He can walk the path until we find the answer, because even though he died a heroic death, we can’t just let him go to the isle of blessed, without knowledge of his past, there is no way of measuring whether his sins outweigh his good deeds.”

The council of statues agreed one after another, until there was only death himself left. Death had taken his blanket back and rolled himself into a burrito, now he was sulking in the corner, feeling left out. He harrumphed and turned his head away.

The dog masked man’s forehead twitched in annoyance as death was ignoring him pettily. “Ugh, fine!” he then shouted and snapped his fingers. Lines not unlike the ones that Lucien had been teleported on, appeared and out of them an elderly man emerged. He bowed to the statues and asked; “How can I be of assistance Judges?” His voice had a posh accent and reminded Lucien extremely of Balthazar, a deceased man from Sylvie’s retirement home.

The summoned man listened to the complaining statues, then turned around to Lucien. He had already opened his mouth to say something, but almost choked on his words the second he saw Lucien’s face. The blond stared back at him in surprise, the guy really was Balthazar!

“Wh- LUCIEN?“ The old man stepped towards him and bent down to study his burnt face. With a wave of the man’s hand, Lucien could feel a strange sensation and watched as his arms turned back to their former, unblemished appearance. Balthazar gasped in surprise and then hugged Lucien with all his might.

There was an awkward silence as the statues were unsure of what to do until the lilac skinned lady spoke up, “You know hi- wait _that_ Lucien? The one with the..” suddenly there was a huge commotion, some statues leaped towards the blond, others started to loudly discuss with each other.

The Anubis looking one was the first to regain his cool, he stomped his staff into the ground in attempt to silence the others, and when it didn’t help he shouted, “If you don’t calm down, I’ll need to call Hades, is that what you want? You all know how he is when his “me-time” gets interrupted!” That shut the stone incarnations up.

The falcon one spoke up first, “We’ve heard a lot about you in the recent years.” The stone man with the toga watched the whole scene unfold, he spoke up as well. “As I had understood, the Supports that we got in the recent years are all due to your work.” Lucien looked at them blankly. One female snorted, “Look at him, he does us such a favor and doesn’t even know it, hey why did you have to die so quickly huh? We could have really used your help a bit longer.”

The dead blond looked at the rambling lady in confusion while a man with a white mask spoke up, “didn’t all of them have a few traces of power on them? I thought it was Thanatos and he was just to bashful to tell us?” he scratched the fluffy cat-like ears that were on top of his head.

Death who was still sulking in the corner perked up at the sound of his name, “I told you that It wasn’t me.” he said, still miffed about the incident earlier. “if the boy would allow me to touch him, I could at least clear this up!” He sounded very annoyed and Lucien shivered at the thought of being touched by him. He really couldn’t explain the pure terror that had set his mind and body into a fight or flight response but he mustered up all his courage. “I think,” he said warily, “if it will help with the situation, it’s ok.” His body shivered as Thanatos stepped closer, for a second his figure overlapped with one of a woman raising her hand and he flinched back involuntarily. Thanatos stopped.

Lucien shut his eyes tightly and said; “just continue, I need to know!” while his eyes closed, he heard heavy steps nearing him. He hated to be completely clueless so he let a bit of his powers seep out to scan his surroundings.

All noise around him stopped.

Then he heard a surprised “oh!”

* * *

There was a silence around Lucien, all statues were staring at the spirit that still had his eyes closed. A familiar aura was surrounding him and a few dark wisps were seeping out of his clothes. Two of the statues stepped back, one was Thanatos, his eyes were wide in disbelief the other one was the representative of Ra, the sun gods dark bird eyes were locked onto Lucien with his intelligent gaze.

Lucien opened his eyes due to the sudden silence, the confusion was evident on his face. All statues were looking at and around him without words. Lucien frowned when he saw Thanatos standing close to him, but while his powers were talking in his surroundings he relaxed, Death really didn’t mean any harm to him. He relaxed a bit and the god picked up on his change. Anubis’ statue started to hurriedly stop his staff into the ground and vanished into thin air, only to come back after a few moments followed by an angry looking dark haired male.

All statues bowed their head in front of the person. When the mist from the shadow travel faded, Lucien studied the mysterious newcomer, he was wearing a dark toga that stood in stark contrast to his pale skin. Although his complexion was an almost sickly white, the man didn’t seem weak at all. The black cloth he was wearing was only loosely tied and did little effort in hiding slender but muscular arms and torso. He had completely black eyes and silky smooth hair which reached till the small of his back. Despite that, he didn’t have one feminine aspect about his looks, he had a strong jaw line that was covered in a five o’ clock shadow and his eyebrows were thick and domineering. The scowl on his face strangely enhanced his handsome, slightly rugged style.

“What do you deem so necessary to interrupt me while I was spending time with my son?” His cold voice cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. His tone was sharp, everyone in the plain flinched at it. Anubis’ representative cleared his throat nervously and looked at the other statues for backup.

Nobody moved.

“Uh, well,” he started, but the newcomer interrupted him, “If this is about who’s in charge of the judges again, I’ll be REALLY angry am I understood?” Death failed to suppress an amused snort. The dark haired man whipped around to cold him, then hesitated. “Why are you physically here Thanatos?” He asked clearly confused; “The decision to offer stone vessels for you and the other gods was to relieve you of some stress, if you have nothing better to do, you might as well help elsewhere.” “Yes I know Hades,” Thanatos said, “there was an anomaly, that is also the reason Anubis brought you here.” “An anomaly?” “Yes, that boy over there…” Hades looked over to the mentioned spirit but didn’t immediately notice anything unusual.

He clenched his teeth in annoyance at the supposed mistake. Although Lucien didn’t know how to properly react, he was quite sure that the man the statues called Hades, was the ruler of the underworld, the king, the overlord and he had made such a big mistake that this mighty figure had to appear. Lucien shivered and wrapped himself in a comforting wrap of his power, Hades looked at the blond flabbergasted.

The ruler of the underworld turned his gaze to Thanatos in confusion, the latter shrugged with a troubled expression.

Hades moved towards the young man slowly as not to frighten him. He laid a hand on his shoulder and let his own energy flow through the half translucent body. The king closed his eyes and searched for the connection between the blond and Thanatos. Soon, he found the souls core, it was filled with murky grey smoke due to his death but two slowly rotating energies could be felt within the cold sphere. One felt like a shard of Thanatos’ power, but the other one was strange, it felt familiar but twisted, a feeling that the god had not felt even once in his immortal life before.

Hades’ forehead wrinkled in focus as he pried deeper into the core. He was sure by now, that the boy was a descendant of Thanatos, not a demigod but either a legacy or a distant relative that had somehow inherited some of the godly gene.

What worried him was the other power. It reminded him strongly of something- or someone he knew but the signals the power was sending were all jumbled up and twisted beyond recognition. Same went for Thanatos’ power, Hades was sure that he wouldn’t have recognized it if he didn’t have such a strong bond to the realm of the dead.

The two little shards were continuously rotating around each other, pulling and pushing each other around in an endless cycle, they were creating a balanced yin and yang situation. In the gap between them glowed the existence of the boy, if he had been judged, the color of it would have changed to represent the place he would occupy in the underworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this I got bamboozled by my own cliffhanger. ( °x°)  
> Felt uninspired for like two days, every time I’d look at the linebreak and just think wow, I love it the suspense is killing me I want to know what happens next but I really kind of want to drop the book at this exact point! Then I realize that the whole storyline is only in my head and if I don't write, I'll never get to know it XP. Oh well, guess it must go on.
> 
> I’m so happy, I know things that you don’t wuhaha, I’m wondering how I should expose all of these beautiful juicy details :3   
> *~°.* \\(^o^)/ *.°~*


	9. Employment

3rd POV:

Hades stepped back, everybody around him was eager to know the results. “It seems,” he began, “that this is indeed a descendant of you, Thanatos.” The eyes of the crowd turned to gawk at Lucien who was uncomfortably shifting around. “How is that possible?” The lilac skinned woman asked. “I hang around Death all the time, he would have told me… right?” at that she looked at Thanatos and her eyes started to water. The god looked at her, then unbelievingly shook his head, “this can’t be, I haven’t sired any children as of the recent few hundred years!” “Maybe,” the snake woman asked, having lost all of her hissing accent, “he is but one of the few that get lucky with their genetics thus somehow inheriting some of your power?”

Hades shook his head, “Mino you know as well as I do that although the godly genetics are dominant, there is no way that it could have reached his far, the fates would make sure of that. Remember the last time when distant offspring of Thanatos appeared, that whole town died because that kid didn’t get taught how to use its power correctly.”

Thanatos looked to the ground and Mino slithered over to him to pat him on the back. She whispered something in his ear in which response he perked up again.

Death cautiously shuffled over to Lucien while watching the blonds’ reaction closely. The spirit watched him curiously, he had gotten over his initial fear and was now ecstatic to meet a real relative of his. When Thanatos reached an arms distance, he awkwardly stretched out his hand to greet his new family member. Lucien giggled under his breath and then reached out to hug the nervous god swiftly.

Death was stunned for a second, then he hugged back with all his might. “You might not be a direct relative, but I swear I will treat you like my son.” He said, sounding honest and determined. Lucien smiled at him, his heart stung for a second with homesickness. Then Thanatos’ Aura washed all over him and Hades watched as Lucien’s core turned to an inky black, the only thing visible being the small shard of unidentified power. Suddenly, the now turned solid blond felt stronger and more awake, his eyes were able to penetrate the thick darkness around and he could see as if it was broad daylight.

“What do we do now?” A bald man with a cape asked, a Japanese accent sounding through, “He’s been reported to have died as a hero but with him being adopted by Thanatos he get’s promoted to (un-)dead. Spending the rest of his immortal life down here would really be a waste right?” The statues around the one clad in yellow nodded. The lilac colored female spoke up with her warm voice; “Why not let him continue what he did before? He’s done a good job when he was alive, you could just employ him Hades.”

She looked at the king of the dead questioningly. The latter stroked his chin in thought, “I don’t think that it would be harmful, Lucien what would you say if I offered you a job? The only rules are that you don’t go back to see people you’ve known. Have you ever heard of the huntresses of Artemis?” Lucien shook his head, “Well since they are blessed by the goddess, just like Thanatos just did to you, they have partial immortality, that means that they can’t die a natural death and only fall in battle.” Of course since you are already dead, this doesn’t apply to you the same way, when you go back the world of the living, your body is a vessel that is still alive thus being woundable. However I am sure that you’ve already felt some differences.”

Lucien looked at him silently, he could see every strand of luscious black hair in detail, even against the dark background, he nodded in confirmation. Then he asked, “So when I stay here there will be nothing to do, no entertainment, no one to talk to right? And since you don’t have information on my past as well, I can’t be put on the isle of blessed right?” His audience nodded in unison. “So I’ll just have to sit around without lasting companions or anything meaningful to do? Nah thanks I guess I could work for you.” Hades looked pleased, “then you will be stationed in one of the shops of the Obsidian jewelry store chain. We’ll have to move you to a place that is far enough from your original location, how does Manhattan sound? You’ll be a closer to the entrance of Olympus that way.”

Lucien shrugged, he didn’t really care about his location, since he couldn’t go back to Sylvie he’d make do with anything. The ruler took his silence as approval, “Very well, then I welcome you at the _Obsidian Jewelry_ branch of _H &H corp._” He opened his arms in a wide gesture, smiled at the blond rather prettily, then he snapped his fingers and the two men shadow traveled away.

The plain got quiet once again, Thanatos looked at his pale hands in shock while the statues shot confused gazes at each other.

The first one to recover from the state was the statue of Ra, the falcon. He gripped his feathery head for a few moments then glared at the Anubis with his beady eyes, “We will end the sorting now, the rest of you will stay here until further notice” he screeched at the remaining, dumbstruck ghosts. His voice alerted the other representatives out of their stasis, one after another, they took back their places on their respective platform.

The ghosts that had not been able to see the process since the force-field of power released by the troubled emotion of both Thanatos and Hades had blocked of their view completely. Unwillingly but also relieved, they sat down in the area while discussing the events that had taken place. Soon conspiracies started to form, some spoke of an incredibly evil person some kind of complete maniac, while others speculated the reincarnation of Buddha or even Jesus. However no matter what the dead thought, the statues had already turned back to being regular stone, even death had taken on the stone cloak once again and left for his actual work.

Only one of the representatives had not gone into the meditative state, it was Ra, the black bird eyes were still focused on the spot the two men had vanished from, his gaze was sharp, intelligent and full of question. Earlier when Hades had looked into the boys soul-core he had shared the image and feeling with them. None of the representatives were able to accurately place the second power shard in the young man’s soul but Ra felt an uncanny resemblance to something he couldn’t quite place. It felt very familiar but at the same time, really strange and new.

The statue shook its feathery head, then it went into a deep sleep like the others.

Somewhere in regular Egyptian office, a dark skinned male with sun bleached dreadlocks stopped typing on his keyboard. He looked around to his sleep deprived co-workers, then stretched his arms in a lazy manner. He yawned and stood up, his direct neighbor looked at him expectantly. “I’m going for a smoke” he said and the human nodded quickly, “I’ll join you.” The mortal hastily said and Ra made a confirming noise. The two of them walked towards the exit and stepped out into the glaring sun.

“Say, Rajiv since when do you smoke?” The human asked, Ra smirked “I don’t but I needed a short break, you get me?” The human chuckled, “by the way just call me Ra, like everybody else, we’ve been working together for three years now and you still treat me so formally!” Ra pouted bit making his dark eyes as large as possible. His coworker laughed, “okay, okay I will stop you look like an abandoned puppy!” Still chuckling, the man took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “even if you don’t smoke, and don’t start I’m telling you it’s a bad habit,” he glared at Ra playfully, “I’ll have one anyways.” At that he lit the cigarette and smoked a deep breath.

The two men stayed in comfortable silence, Ra had closed his eyes and was enjoying the hot rays of the sun on his skin. He opened the first few buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeve to soak up more of the light. The smoking male watched him carefully and grinned, “You look exactly like my cat whenever I come home” he laughed at the thought, “every time she’s laying on the couch, that she’s not allowed on might I add, and holds her fluffy belly to the sun from the kitchen window.” Ra nodded in appreciation, “Your cat knows how to enjoy life.” He sighed while contemplating to just take off work for the rest of the day. “Hey Maurice!” “Hmm?” the gods mortal coworker snuffed out his cigarette, “you wanna take off?” “Well yeah but…” “oh come on, we’ve all been working on this stupid project for so long and now that it’s finally done you won’t even allow yourself to relax for even a little bit?” Ra stomped over to stand in front of the mortal while huffing in annoyance.

Maurice waved his hand towards himself with a flushed face, “Why do you want to go now? It’s so hot, at least the office has some decent air conditioning!” A drop of sweat rolled down his neck while Ra looked at him in confusion, “But this is literally the best time to be out,” the god pleaded “pleaaaase pretty pretty please? I will die if I spend one more moment in front of the computer, all I’m writing is mush and it’s not like we have any new orders right now!” Maurice pushed a strand of his dark brown hair back and scrunched up his nose, “Nah maybe this evening, I’ll even ask the others.”

“Come on it’s so nice and sunny right now.”

“No! It’s always “nice and sunny” and fucking forty degrees Celsius as well, I will get a sunburn!”

“You won’t I swear!”

“NO!!!”

The two stared at each other with heated eyes, “Humph FINE!” Ra turned around and walked away, while he was still in hearing range he shouted “Tell the boss that I’m taking the rest of the day off!” Maurice stared at his back that was getting smaller and smaller in the distance with sadness in his eyes. “Fuck!” he then cursed weakly and went back into the office to wail in self pity.


	10. Princely affairs

**Nico POV** :

I looked at the mountain of work piled on my table and banged my head repeatedly onto the cherry wood. It didn't do anything but add to my already existing headache. I sighed and pressed my cheek to the cold surface. I tiredly looked around my office while long strands of my hair fell into my eyes. Blew some air out of the corner of my mouth to remove them but they persistently stayed. With an overdramatic groan I forced myself out of my chair and let my tired body fall into the black fluffy carpet. It swallowed me up and spit me back out on at camp in my father's cabin.

Although I had long mastered my shadow powers, I still felt tired so I flopped into my old bed and promptly fell asleep.

"Hey" a hushed voice woke me from my slumber. I was immediately alert but then relaxed, if someone had the chance to enter the cabin, it meant it was someone that I trusted. I concealed a smirk and pretended to still be asleep. "Hey, Nico!" the voice hissed at me and warm hands gently shook me. In the blink of an eye, I grabbed the arm of the person looming over me and with a fluid motion pulled the familiar body under me.

With a surprised gasp, Will fell onto my bed and looked up trying to see me through the darkness. He wrinkled his nose in concentration and his skin started to glow slightly. I couldn't suppress a smile blooming on my face at the tingling feeling of his power. He smiled back at me and raised his head to kiss me on the tip of my nose. "Good afternoon, sunshine." He chuckled and I mockingly scowled at the nickname. "It's your highness, Prince di Angelo please!" I said with a face posh accent. Will giggled and rolled us around to straddle my hips. He bent down to passionately kiss me and I responded just as enthusiastically.

After a good few minutes of making out with each other, Will pulled back to playfully hit my shoulder. "I haven't seen for like two months how in the name of your father did you have yet another growth spurt? It's slowly getting obscene, you're almost towering me now!" He laughed heartily, the sound heavenly in my ears. I smiled him and the heavy shadows lifted from the room. Will released me from his crushing hug and stood up from the bed. I watched the blond man step to one of the tinted windows and sat up slowly. A very nice thought came to me as I eyed his ample bottom. I tapped into my powers to let thin tendrils of dark matter crawl up the legs of my lover.

In the time spent after the war, we had figured out what to be and how to treat each other in our "relationship". Every year that I spent with Will after the war had opened my eyes, I didn't quite know what I wanted but I did know what I didn't want and even though Will didn't give me the fulfillment I was searching for, he was damn near close to it and quite honestly just such an amazing person that I could look over the fact that something felt amiss.

And Will had been surprisingly understanding and accepting that he was not the one for me, sometimes I wondered what I did right to deserve such an amazing friend and lover. He had opted to stay with me and we made a kind of deal, since we both immensely enjoyed each other's company and the sex was great ,we would stick together and fulfill each other's needs until we found the ones we were truly searching for.

Although I knew that Will wasn't one hundred percent gay and also slept with girls, I never questioned my sexuality after the whole truth or dare fiasco.

I raised a hand and very lightly, the tendrils wafted around Will's ankles, knees and then thighs. The son of Apollo squirmed a bit but ignored the prickling sensation. I snickered to myself, knowing full well that the blond had shaken it off as a trick of his mind. I let the smoke gain some texture and formed it as hands, through my connection I could feel his body as if I was touching it directly. The now solidified hands wrapped around Will's hips and torso. With a gasp, Will spun around to only to melt to the floor under my touches. I felt the smile tugging on the corners of my mouth as I stood up from my bed and slid over to where Will was.

I watched as Will writhed on the dark wooden floor, his shirt riding up to expose a toned chest and perky pink nipples. While leaning over Will I couldn't help but chuckle, his comment about my height was correct, after the war my height had increased rapidly, whether it was the food I suddenly couldn't stop shoveling into myself after being appointed as Hades' official heir or just the increased physical activity that I participated in. Whatever had triggered my growth spurt, it had left me in that awkwardly lanky teenager state until I started training under some of the biggest heroes within the underworld. Now as an immortal twenty-nine year old, I felt quite comfortable in my own body. Although I surely wasn't as bulky as Frank, I sported a nice set of muscles on his lean body that I was admittedly quite proud of.

While I was pondering over my now almost six foot frame, I heard Will wantonly moan under the still attacking shadows. He had turned onto his belly and desperately rutted against the floor. I bit my lips at the erotic picture in front of me, finally deciding to relieve him I opened his pants and flipped around the moaning mess that was Will.

I kissed him deeply and redacted my powers only to replace them with my own hands. Will whimpered at my presumably cool touches on his overheating body. I quickly stripped him of his remaining clothes and grabbed his waist for support. With my mouth still occupied and my left arm lifting the writhing man under me, I used the other hand to prep Will up for what was to come.

I waved a pattern for a couple of seconds, a bottle of lube fell out of thin air only to open itself up and pour its content onto my waiting fingers. I rubbed the oily substance to warm it up as best as possible. My pale fingers were forming a stark contrast to his bronze skin. I gently rubbed Will's plump butt for a few moments and then spanked him lightly, he whimpered and trust into the air. Ever so slowly, my fingers teased the puckered entrance of his entrance, then I eased my middle finger into the tight heat.

I lightly wiggled it around, trying to loosen him up since we hadn't done it in quite a while. Then again, Will was the son of Apollo and well... anyway he probably had the same regenerative abilities as an Aphrodite's camper. How I knew of those? Well I had experimented a bit since can't say you don't like it if you never tried it, right? Yeah, no I had certainly confirmed that, although I had in fact had the pleasure to hook up with a few male members of the Aphrodite's Cabin, they were wild, very good in bed and certainly not the type I was looking for.

While I was reminiscing the memories, I had added my index finger. In an attempt to open the tight channel up, I scissored it only to find Wills eyes rolling back in pleasure.

Every time we did it, I found himself surprised at the receptiveness that Will showed but guessed that it was also an Apollo thing. Without further more stalling, I lifted Will onto my lap and slid into the almost burning heat. I involuntarily sighed at the feeling of my dick being devoured by Wills insides. For a few moments I leaned on the smaller man's bronzed chest and relished the feeling.

I felt Will's back arch and he got very quiet. I knew him very well and what buttons to push to get him into this state. I looked up and sure enough Will had his eyes wide open, a glazed expression on his face and occasional shudders ran through his lean body. I lifted the demigod up a bid and then let him go, effectively letting Will bounce onto me and impaling him onto my entire length. At this point the man was just a heap of eroticism.

With a pleasured scream, Will temporarily snapped out of his half unconscious state. He moaned loudly and began rubbing himself on me further at an almost painfully slow pace. I had thought that after this long separation, he would be more energetic but he was apparently playing the long game. Now normally I wouldn't have anything against sensual sex but with all the stress that I had at my dad's place, I was not having it.

I wrapped the Will's leg around my waist and lifted myself up with the help of my powers. I then carried him to my bed with low effort had it not been that he decided to take my momentum as an invitation to move more upon my moving form. I found the sensation quite distracting and almost stumbled a few times on my way to the queen sized mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steamy, i don't quite know if I will also write the complete scene out, since we are still at the beginning and i wanna reserve the juicy stuff, at the same time more juicy stuff would be great as well.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to put this on hiatus for a while because I really put a lot of work into it but it's kind of getting a lukewarm response *-*  
> Might feel inspired some time later and continue it anyway.


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